Monte Morris, clad in a blue varsity jacket, thought his night was over.

Morris began to exit the visitor’s locker room at the Staples Center last Thursday night only to realize a handful of reporters were waiting to speak with him. The second-year guard who has just eight NBA games to his name was one of the standouts in the Nuggets’ loss to the Los Angeles Lakers, their first this season.

Poised and collected, not unlike his demeanor during crunch time against LeBron James’ Lakers, Morris explained how a conversation with Nuggets coach Mike Malone eased his concerns about making a mistake on the court. Two days later, neither Malone nor Morris’ teammates hesitated when discussing his emerging role.

“I think probably the biggest step for him will be getting comfortable as really a rookie, being vocal, running your team,” Malone said. “We did a lot of stuff today where I forced him and Jamal (Murray) to run their team and call plays for different guys.”

Morris finished with a career-high 20 points, seven assists and no turnovers in the 121-114 loss. Among players averaging less than 22 minutes a night, he’s third in the NBA with 4.4 assists per game and has easily the fewest turnovers (0.4 per game).

“I didn’t envision him five games in his NBA career getting 20 and seven in L.A. on national TV,” said Malone, conceding that Morris is ahead of schedule. “I can’t imagine anybody aside from Monte, and his mom and his brother envisioned that.”

Malone said that Morris has surpassed every challenge — Summer League, the rigors of training camp and preseason — that the team has thrown at him. Without Will Barton, Morris gives the Nuggets a sturdy ballhandler and a plucky defender unafraid of checking the opponent’s point guard. He also allows Murray to shift to the two guard, stretching the defense away from the ball.

“Monte is a pure point guard, and Jamal Murray, go back to when he was at Kentucky, he was really effective as a catch-and-shoot player,” Malone said. “Monte’s just shown he’s a floor leader. He makes the right decision, he’s trustworthy, he’s shooting the ball well, 50 percent from the 3-point line. Those two guys together I think could be a pretty good tandem.”

While Morris has been a pleasant surprise, it’s the Nuggets’ offense that has been uncharacteristically cold. The Nuggets were sixth in the NBA last season with 11.5 3-pointers made per game, but they’ve averaged only eight per game thus far on just 29 percent outside shooting, both the second-lowest in the league.

Though Paul Millsap doesn’t shoot many 3-pointers, he’s drawn the majority of attention for his offensive struggles. Millsap, who is averaging just 10.2 points on 37 percent shooting, admitted he’s thinking too much.

“I feel like I’m just rushing everything. Everything’s rushed,” Millsap said. “That’s normally not how I play basketball. I don’t rush anything in life. For me to get out there on a basketball court and rush things, it’s a little unprecedented.”

The silver lining is that he’s been the anchor of the defense. The Nuggets need his communication and instincts, especially with New Orleans’ vaunted frontcourt coming to the Pepsi Center on Monday.

Not only does Millsap believe his offense will come around, he also has a viable explanation for the team’s atypical shooting.

“Take my personal aspect out of it, the other aspect is guys are really locking in on the defensive end,” he said. “They’re really trying to do the right things on the defensive end. Sometimes that will take away from the offense. When we build our stamina, being able to play good defense coming down and being able to get our legs under our shots, I think we’ll be fine.”

Mike Singer is the Denver Nuggets beat writer for The Denver Post. A Cleveland native, he is also the former NBA editor at USA TODAY. He previously covered the Chicago Bulls for CSNChicago.com and worked at CBSSports.com.

Tim Connelly was effusive in his praise of the Washington Wizards organization, but if you parse his words closely at Tuesday’s end-of-the-year news conference, the Baltimore native didn’t sound like he was ever too close to leaving Denver.